You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live

Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America

By: Paul Kix

Narrated by: Jaime Lincoln-Smith

Long-listed, New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year, 2023

This program features a prologue and epilogue read by the author.

From journalist Paul Kix, the riveting story, never before fully told, of the 1963 Birmingham Campaign—ten weeks that would shape the course of the Civil Rights Movement and the future of America.

It’s one of the iconic photographs of American history: A Black teenager, a policeman and his lunging German Shepherd. Birmingham, Alabama, May of 1963. In May of 2020, as reporter Paul Kix stared at a different photo–that of a Minneapolis police officer suffocating George Floyd–he kept returning to the other photo taken half a century earlier, haunted by its echoes. What, Kix wondered, was the full legacy of the Birmingham photo? And of the campaign it stemmed from?

In You Have To Be Prepared To Die Before You Can Begin To Live, Paul Kix takes the listener behind the scenes as he tells the story of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s pivotal 10 week campaign in 1963 to end segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. At the same time, he also provides a window into the minds of the four extraordinary men who led the campaign—Martin Luther King, Jr., Wyatt Walker, Fred Shuttlesworth, and James Bevel.

With captivating prose that sounds like a thriller, Kix’s audiobook is the first to zero in on the ten weeks of Project C, as it was known—its specific history and its echoes sounding throughout our culture now. It’s about Where It All Began, for sure, but it’s also the key to understanding Where We Are Now and Where We Will Be. As the fight for equality continues on many fronts, Project C is crucial to our understanding of our own time and the impact that strategic activism can have.

A Macmillan Audio production from Celadon Books.

©2023 Paul Kix (P)2023 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Through the careful accretion of intimate detail, Paul Kix makes a convincing case that Birmingham 1963 was the linchpin of the civil rights era and perhaps the most consequential ten-week period in modern American history. His portraits of the Birmingham saga's many heroes (sung and unsung) are poignant, revealing, and finely drawn."–Hampton Sides, New York Times bestselling author of Hellhound on His Trail

"An eloquent contribution to the literature of civil rights and the ceaseless struggle to attain them."–Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live walks us, in profound detail, through the long days and nights that would lead to the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. It offers specifics of heroism never before or rarely enough told. And it unpacks, without sensation, opportunities disrupted so that our generation may learn, and in learning, claim our own for our role in the bending of that storied moral arc. For we who count ourselves among those specific numbers, join me in welcoming, gratefully, Paul Kix’s brilliantly documented and beautifully rendered testimony, a life-giving offering to his children. And mine. And yours."–asha bandele, New York Times bestselling author, activist, and poet

1963 a 10 year old

As a person who loves to get into history, I was interested to see who the author was, specifically his race. How was he to identify with the perils of the Era. I'll say he did a spectacular job. He taught me circumstances that either did not know or brought clarity to some pieces of confusion. Thank you. The narration was excellent.

The history of events that lead us to the civil rights act.

I liked the way it was written as a guideline for the future of America.

A Historical Masterpiece!!!

This was an exceptionally written, educational book. I’m so thankful that I have read this book. I think every student attending school at this very moment needs to read this book.

Adds insights not mentioned in other Birmingham civil rights histories

Adds insights not previously coveted in other Birmingham civil rights histories. Worth the listen to understand how much organizing and behind the scenes negotiations were necessary to get the results obtained.

Riveting!

An important book to understand the history of the civil rights act, and to apply it to present day relationships between the races in our country. Be sure you read this. The audiobook is well done.

Outstanding

I grew up during some of this mainly the aftermath. Going through the intergration of Alabama schools. This book adds some different perspective and depth to this story